


Something Engrossing

by Tierfal



Category: Death Note
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naomi probably shouldn't expect conversations sparked by dead bodies to be normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Engrossing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hervictory](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=hervictory).



> Yet another Valentine's Day meme giftfic, this prompt being "corpse." My apologies for the various bizarre allusions...

She's seen it all before, but that doesn't make it any easier.

Dismemberment is not one of those things you _get used_ to.

She put milk and cream in her coffee this morning, a bit too much as she glanced uncomfortably at the little foil-topped packets of jam in the wicker basket, and now it feels like it's curdling in the pit of her stomach. She mutters some excuse or another and retreats—from the biting, metallic scent-taste of the blood; from the unsettling _incompleteness_ of the ill-fated cadaver; from the wide, wide, unblinking eyes that trace her every move; from the mind behind them.

She stands on the street, watching cars spit fumes into the smoggy air, and wishes she smoked. Raye would hate it, but it would bring her back to Earth, reeling her in from this half-haze of dizzy bewilderment.

There are footsteps—pattering footsteps; bare feet.

She doesn't look at Ryuzaki, because he's almost no better than what lies lifeless inside. He's pale like death and cold like it, and there is something so deeply _wrong_ about him that her skin crawls at the abstract thought of him standing at her side.

_"I'm never submissive."_

Eugh.

The walking corpse that haunts her lets her have a long moment—presumably knowing very well that she's using it to think about him—and then speaks without clearing his throat.

"It's quite grotesque, isn't it?" he remarks. "I take it you aren't a Goya aficionado either."

"He _did_ paint things other than Saturn eating his children," she retorts.

"Yes," Ryuzaki concedes idly. "Another of his most famous involves dead revolutionaries. Charming, really."

Naomi eyes him sidelong—the glimmer in the eyes, the curl of the smirk, the delicate pallor, the perpetual movement of the hands. There is something engrossing about him, whether she likes it or not. Conrad. _The fascination of the abomination._

He sees it, reads it, smirks a little wider.

"Well?" he prompts.

"'Well' what?" she asks.

He shrugs, and she leads him back inside.


End file.
